Saturday, March 11, 2006

A fun day! But pardon me while I puke up some peanut butter...

Sooooooooo much fun today!!!! DaisyDuc absolutely rocked the Malachi 5-miler! And my MOM did awesome in the 2 miler! I managed to keep Competitive Sara (CS) at bay....she was definitely knocking on my brain at the starting line, but I knew I was going to ride with Su after the race and wanted to save a bit for that! AND-it's not PR year. It's IM year. Repeat, repeat, repeat. (See I just have to keep saying that :)

So my goal of running under 45 was very doable. A little hard mentally since I know I can technically run faster but that's not for now! (IM year, IM year...must focus!) Set out to see if I could hold a tempo pace for a few miles to see how it went. Mile 1: 7:55. A little too fast for my goal, but lots of that first mile was downhill, so it didn't feel very hard at all. Mile 2: 8:16. Better. I thought, hey, this ain't so bad! Maybe I could hold this for a while.

Then the side cramp hit. Ugh. NOT so fun. Slowed down a bit which was OK with me, since there was a long but gradual hill at this point. Stupid cramp just didn't want to go away! (Good thing CS wasn't there in full effect, or she'd be really mad and probably let that ruin her day.) Mile 3: 9:02. OK. Not great, but this cramp was NOT fun.

Right around now Su who was being a running bandit found me! :) This was good because the cramp was really cramping my style. (hee hee) It made a big difference to have someone there to help get my mind off it! Mile 3: 9:01. Found Speedy Angie who was also suffering from a nasty cramp and she ran with us for a bit. Cramp finally started to go away when we saw Su's coach Kurt (who had been done for about a half hour at this point:) and I had a half mile left. Great! It finally leaves at 4.5. Just my luck. :) But I felt great and could hear the music! My dad was at the bottom of the final hill and snapped this picture about 1/4 mile from the finish. It's a 1/4 mile or so climb to the top, but not too bad...Dad took a picture of us that blogger won't UPLOAD for some reason--I'll try again later--and you'll notice me smiling???????!!!!! I felt great!!!!

I say that because about halfway up the hill, for NO REASON AT ALL--I wasn't even going FAST for crying out loud!---I almost PUKED UP MY PEANUT BUTTER TOAST.

Like, felt it come UP the chute.

Is this what I get for not having my typical Clif Bar? But I used to have peanut butter toast when I did lots of 5Ks! I don't get it! Thought for a minute I was going to lose my breakfast all over some innocent spectator and his dog. My face must have been hysterical--as I grabbed my mouth and widened my eyes--WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING?????!!!!! AAAGHGHGHGKLAJRKL;SJDKFLSA!!!

So I stopped. Like, 20 yards from the finish. Held my hand over my mouth and WALKED--WALKED!!!-- to the finish chute! DaisyDuc was cheering me on saying, "Come on, Sara, you can do it!!!" And I was like, "No dude, you don't understand--I almost puked."

She looked confused. :)

For some reason, I then felt the need to explain to a bunch of puzzled spectators, who were yelling "The finish line is RIGHT THERE!", that "I almost puked peanut butter."

So I made it! But what the HECK???????? It is kinda funny--again, good thing I'm normal Sara and not CS (although Zeke said she called him and told him she'd be racing--ha ha) The weird thing is I felt FINE at the end! Not even that TIRED!!! I burped randomly for like 20 minutes, but I did not vomitar. ????????????

Anyhoo, what would have been around 43:50 turned into (I think?) just under 45! Far far far from my PR, but OK for now!

So technically, we'll call that achieving my goal. But what is that?????!!!! That's NEVER happened to me before, even in a REALLY REALLY HARD race--let alone in one I didn't do that hard! Soooooooooooooooo bizarre.

Anyhoo, drove back home with the 'rents and Su came over so we could go for a RIDE!!!!!! OUTSIDE!!!!!!! NOT ON MY TRAINER!!!! It was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo nice to get outside. No amount of "o's" can emphasize that enough. It was kind of strange to have tired legs on the bike and fresh legs on the run--very backwards! But we had a nice ride that was probably around 22 miles? My dumb computer wasn't working right. Even a few hills thrown in there and we made it fine! Woo hoo!

So that concludes my day of fun for now--going to have some fun tonight, but not until I take a shower for cryin' out loud. No one would want to be near me at the moment.

Chalk up one victory for Rational Sara over Competitive Sara. I owe a lot of that to my buddies! :)

9 comments:

Papa Louie said...

Congratulations to rational Sara! You raced with your Ironman mind. I wonder with cramps and the urge to puke had something to do with the timing of when you ate your pb toast. Maybe you need more time to allow for digestion?

Nancy Toby said...

It's okay to puke in the chutes. I think they see that all the time. :-)

WELL DONE! GREAT EFFORT!!

tryathlete said...

If you keep going for Personal Bests (PB) one of these days you will get Peanut Butter.

Mojo said...

It must be difficult to hold back but you did the right thing. Even of you were holding back, your run time was impressive. Sorry you almost puked, that would have been awful at the finish line!

Sounds like you had a fun race, surrounded by friends and family. Awesome ride after the race too.

E-Speed said...

glad you guys had so much fun! awesome pics.

sorry about the almost puking. I have had issues with pb too, who knows.

Cliff said...

Good run guys..i mean girls :)

I thought no puking means not running hard enough..j/k :D

The ride afterwards must have been sweet :)....

Rae said...

Great job on the run and the biking! It was a gorgeous weekend here.

I've had one race puke - and it totally came out of nowhere too. It was a half and the first few miles I had had a lot of side stitches, then I felt great in the middle, a few more stitches towards the end, back to great and then coming up a giant hill at the end I just HAD to puke. After that I was back to great and raced the last mile in! It was the strangest, most embaressing thing!!

qcmier said...

I've puked many times at the end of the finish chute. It never tastes like peanut butter though.

Cycling Under The Influence said...

Good job hold down the pace, and the food. I had a friend let go on the timing mat once- he never lived it down.